Robyn Huey

Overview

Robyn Huey introduced an anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) resolution at the University of Davis, California (UC Davis), in 2014.

Huey reportedly received a bachelor’s degree in Landscape Architecture at UC Davis in December 2015 and as of February 2016, worked full-time as a designer for Shields Library at UC Davis.

Huey served as a Senator for Associated Students of the University of California, Davis (ASUCD) for the 2014-2015 academic year. She also served as ASUCD Vice President in 2015.

Supporting BDS

In April 2014, Huey introduced an anti-Israel divestment resolution at UC Davis, titled: “ASUCD [Associated Students of the University of California, Davis] Senate Resolution #20 (SR#20).”

The resolution called on the University of California to divest from companies “that aid in the Israeli occupation of Palestine and illegal settlements in Palestinian territories.”

On April 17, 2014, Huey voted in favor of the resolution.

The divestment resolution Huey introduced failed on May 9, 2014. The student senate vote was evenly divided and the ASUCD Vice President abstained from breaking the tie, resulting in a 5-5-3 vote.

On January 29, 2015, Huey attended a student senate hearing to present an expanded version of the 2014 resolution, titled: “ASUCD Senate Resolution #9 (SR #9).” The expanded version was authored by Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) activist at UC Davis, Saliem Shehadeh.

Following speeches for and against the resolution, the anti-divestment students, who reportedly constituted “about a third of attendees,” walked out [00:06:51] of the room.

As they left, a large group of pro-divestment students chanted [00:00:05] “Allahu Akhbar!” [God is the Greatest].

On January 22, 2015, Huey voted in favor of the January 2015 resolution, which passed with a vote of 8-2-2.

A week after the resolution passed, unidentified vandals spray-painted two large swastikas on a house belonging to the Jewish fraternity, Alpha Epsilon Pi (AEPi).

UC Davis Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi issued a statement that the January 2015 resolution to divest did not reflect the position of UC Davis or the University of California system. The Board and Office of the President had earlier issued a statement affirming the Board’s position that student calls to action would not be entertained. UC Davis’ investment policy is set by the UC Board of Regents.

The January 2015 resolution was overturned as unconstitutional by the university’s Court of Associated Students, on the grounds that it was "primarily a political document" with insufficient relevance to student welfare on campus.

In May 2015, SJP at UCD responded by proposing a new resolution, titled: “ASUCD Senate Resolution #17 (SR #17).” The May 2015 resolution was written by then-SJP at UCD president, Marcelle-Alexandra Obeid and co-authored by former SJP at UCD president, Diyala Shihadih.

The resolution alleged that “enabling Israel’s occupation of Palestine compromises the integrity of students’ education.”

The May 2015 resolution passed with a vote of 10-0-2 but was later ruled unconstitutional by the ASUCD Judicial Council in May 2019.

The Judicial Council further noted that the resolution also violated the ASUCD Bill of Student Rights, because its passage “led to the discrimination and harassment of students whose ethnicity, national origin or political beliefs are in opposition to the content of the Resolution.”

Anti-Semitism at UC Davis

On January 31, 2015, less than 48 hours after a divestment resolution passed at UC Davis, unidentified vandals spray-painted two large swastikas on the wall and entrance of the UC Davis Alpha Epsilon Pi (AEPi) Jewish fraternity house.

On January 22, 2015, a week before the scheduled divestment resolution vote, the words “grout out the Jews” were etched into the wall of a bathroom stall at the UC Davis Hillel House.

On March 25, 2016, an anti-semitic flier was distributed to networked printers and fax machines on campus. The flier included swastikas and said “White Man are you Sick and Tired of the Jews Destroying Your Country through Mass Immigration and Degeneracy? Join Us in the Struggle for Global White Supremacy at the Daily Stormer.”

On October 10, 2015, vandals carved swastikas and “F**k Jews” into two cars and slashed the tires of eight cars parked on the UC Davis campus.

Disruption of George Deek

On March 7, 2016, a group of around 30 protesters from a group calling itself "Pro-Palestine Supporters and Community” disrupted an event titled “The Art of Middle East Diplomacy,”organized by a pro-Israel group at UC Davis.

The event featured Israeli diplomat George Deek, an Arab Christian born in Jaffa. The disruption was videotaped.

The protesters obscured [00:00:33] Deek from the audience’s view, with an enormous banner across the front of the room that read “1948=1492” and disrupted Deek’s talk, repeatedly chanting [00:00:05, 00:00:31 and 00:02:17] “Long live the Intifada” and [00:00:10, 00:00:38 and 00:01:17] “Intifada, Intifada!”

The protestors also demonized [00:00:13] Israel, calling it “an Apartheid state” and claiming [00:01:21] “Israel is anti-Black.”

As the protesters shouted, Deek wrote [00:01:39] on a chalkboard behind them that he had come to have a conversation. However, the activists then exited the room, yelling [00:02:32] “Allahu Akbar!”

A post-walkout statement from the protesters claimed that they organized based on “shared principles of anti-colonialism in general and anti-zionism in particular,” to reject Deek’s “settler-colonial agenda that is xenophobic, Islamophobic and anti-Black.

The statement condemned Deek, “a self-identified Israeli born to a Palestinian family,” as a“colonial collaborator,” announcing its authors would “not tolerate or allow for such people to have a platform to speak on [their] campus.

BDS

The Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement was founded by Omar Barghouti in 2005 to challenge “international support for Israeli apartheid and settler-colonialism.” BDS is an allegedly “Palestinian-led movement,” although leading BDS activists have admitted [00:01:01] this is not true.

One of the demands of BDS includes [point 3] what is generally known as the “right of return,” a demand discredited as a way to eliminate Israel. Barghouti said the “right of return” is a means to “end Israel’s existence as a Jewish state.”

Barghouti has said that BDS “aims to turn Israel into a pariah state, as South Africa once was.”

In his activism, Barghouti has also said [00:05:55] regarding Israel: “Definitely, most definitely, we oppose a Jewish state in any part of Palestine. No…rational Palestinian, not a sellout Palestinian, will ever accept a Jewish state in Palestine.”

The movement has been linked to numerous terrorist organizations and received a public endorsement from Hamas in 2017.

BDS initiatives include calling on institutions and individuals to divest from Israeli-affiliated companies, promoting academic and cultural boycotts of Israel, and organizing anti-Israel rallies, protests and campaigns.

The movement’s most notable achievement has been the infiltration of university campuses through lobbying for “BDS resolutions.” In these cases, student governments and student groups, backed by their own anti-Israel members and affiliates, have proposed resolutions on some form of boycott of, or divestment from, Israel and Israeli-affiliated entities.

Boycott resolutions, although non-binding, have been passed by student governments on numerous North American campuses.

BDS activity is often aggressive and disruptive. It has been noted that universities that pass BDS resolutions see a marked increase in anti-Semitic incidents on campus. On one campus, when the student government debated a BDS resolution, reports emerged of violent threats against those opposing it.